The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:[1] All draws held at the European Handball Federation headquarters in Vienna, Austria.

There is 16 teams participating in the group phase.

The seedings were announced on 21 November 2016 Teams in the draw will be protected against meeting teams from the same country in the same group.

Only the top two teams of each group made it to the quarter-finals.

Teams listed first played the first leg at home.